


These Are Portents

by DothTheRaven



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, BAMF Stiles, Canon-Typical Violence, Contemplation of Suicide, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nogitsune, Past Underage, Slow Build, at season 4
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-03-14 12:33:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3410768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DothTheRaven/pseuds/DothTheRaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While the nogitsune is gone, it left Stiles a little different than before and his dreams are still haunting him. If anything, they are more alarming now than when he was possessed. And he may or may not be sharing them with Derek. </p><p>-0-</p><p>Or, what could have happened in season 4 without Mexican churches and a de-aged ex-alpha. Plus, the nogitstune didn't leave Stiles as untouched as everyone thinks and the consequences are frankly terrifying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When the Smoke Clears (What’s Left Behind)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to a slightly more Sterek take on season 4 (without the benefactor etc.). Tags and warnings may change along the way. I'll try to post at least once a week, maybe twice on the weekends. 
> 
> Be WARNED: a character does contemplate suicide in this fic, so please be judicious in reading if that's a trigger for you.
> 
> I own nothing of teen wolf.  
> All mistakes are my own.  
> Let me know if I missed tags or warnings.

For the first time in months, Stiles knows that he is dreaming. It’s in the muted browns and blues hidden in the shadowed cement floor. It’s in the empty feeling of the air when his arms swing as he walks forward. It’s in the fact that he can’t feel his feet, and that his steps make no sound. 

This is a dream, he tells himself.

He knows that he should be relieved, that finally, after the nogitsune, he knows that he’s asleep and that this is a dream and that none of it is real. But it’s fucking terrifying, and that’s the only reason he doesn’t pinch himself awake. 

It’s Derek’s loft, and it gives him pause, because he can still remember the motions his body made as the nogitsune threw the werewolf across the room. It’s something he tries not to think about during the day, but he can’t outrun those memories, especially when he’s low on Adderall or when he surfaces from thirteen hours on the internet or from a COD marathon—or when he’s asleep.

  
It’s one reason he still doesn’t like to sleep. It’s just easier to not remember that Allison is dead and so are a whole lot of other people and that it may or may not be his fault, but it’s definitely in part thanks to the fact that his dad is his one big weakness (besides Scott, but Scott is a god-damn Alpha Werewolf who can take care of himself) and Stiles would do anything to keep him safe. This time his efforts resulted in his temporary death and a lot of other peoples’ permanent ones. 

So he keeps walking, and he’s reminded again that this is a dream because no matter how many steps he takes, he can’t seem to cross the room to where a prone figure lays in darkness. And Stiles gets the feeling that it’s really damn important that he makes it to the other side of the room. He thinks that there might be terrible consequences if he doesn’t. He knows this feeling well. It’s how he felt every time the nogitsune was about to kill someone. 

He doesn’t realize that he’s crying until the tears drip from his chin onto his hand, and groans of frustration rip from his throat.

Finally he stops, gasping for breath, and drops to his knees. 

It’s too late, he thinks. Whatever happened, whatever he should have done and should have stopped, it happened. And just like always, it’s too late.

Stiles brings his hands to his head, grips his hair and screams for himself to wake up.

  
***

  
He counts his fingers and reads the definition to his word-of-the-day calendar (solipsism—great, just what he needed) and drives to school because that’s what normal people do (maybe not the finger counting, but hey, it’s a work in progress). And he forgets about his dream until Econ when Scott prods him in the arm.

“Hey man, are you okay?” 

It’s a simple question, but Scott’s tone is a little too intentionally blasé. 

“Yeah, why?” Stiles replies. He avoids his friend’s gaze and pulls out his books instead.

“Stiles, you’re just…” Scott pauses and gives Stiles his tentative squinty face. “You just look tired.”

Oh, there it is. To Stiles and his dad and Scott, and probably everyone else privy to the actual events of the last couple of months, a tired!Stiles equals a nogitsune!Stiles. 

“No man, I’m fine,” he says. “Weird dreams.”

“Dreams?” Scott blanches.

Okay, that probably wasn’t the best thing to say.

“Actual dreams, Scott. Like when you know you’re dreaming and you can wake up and things don’t really make sense and there aren’t any game boards or tree trunks or faceless monsters… Well actually, some of my real dreams are like that now so I guess that isn’t a real good benchmark anymore.”

If anything, Scott looks even more concerned.

“And I forgot to take my Adderall,” Stiles adds.

Scott’s frown abates, and while he doesn’t say anything more because class starts, Stile can tell that he’s still worried. 

The thing is that Stiles is worried too. A lot more worried than he feels like he should be. While his dream didn’t resemble the nogitsune-fueled ones, it was almost equally as terrifying, but Stiles has no idea why. Just this once, he hopes that all of this is in his head.

He stifles a laugh and ignores Scott’s questioning look. You know things are bad when the best explanation to your perceived concerns is your own insanity. 

Scott doesn’t bring up the issue again, but he trails close to Stiles. Even when Kira joins them and she stops to speak with Lydia, Scott follows him to history class though they’re early.

“Do you think…” Scott begins.

“Nope.”

“But—“

“No, definitely not,” Stiles interrupts again.

“Stiles!” Scott growls this time. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“You were going to ask if this has anything to do with the ancient evil demon tricksters fox spirit I was recently possessed by and which has since been exorcised, so no Scott, I don’t think this has anything to do with the nogitsune,” Stiles hisses. He wonders if his heartbeat lied, but he’s too afraid to ask Scott.

“Jeez,” Scott says. “I was wondering if you think you should see anyone, to, you know, talk about it or something.”

“Or something?”

“I don’t know,” his voice drops. “Therapy, or something,” Scott says. “My mom thought it might be a good idea, and then they could give you sleeping pills or something so you don’t look like shit, because man, I think you look worse than when you were possessed.”

“Why thank you, Scott. Just what me and my diminishing self-esteem needed to hear.”

“Just think about it, okay? It’s good to talk to someone, after, everything….”

Stiles flails, and then dips his head in agreement when he remembers the bereft look on Scotts face after Allison’s death. It hasn’t gone away, and Stiles thinks it might never. It makes him look older. It makes him look like he could be a True Alpha and not just some slightly dorky asthmatic who got himself bit by a crazy werewolf in the woods one night thanks to the stupidity of his very persuasive and entirely irresponsible best friend.

Stiles lowers his head to his desk as he waits for class to start. Scott doesn’t want to talk about Allison, and Stiles sure as hell doesn’t want to. It’s one of the things that fits perfectly into that box of terrible memories that makes him wish sometimes that someone had just killed him before the nogitsune used his body for mass murder. And even that thought makes him feel guilty, because he knows, without a doubt, that if anything happened to him, his dad would never recover.

Since his mom’s death, Stiles has operated on his own three-fold code: Protect his dad. Protect Scott. And, try to get Lydia Martin to fall in love with him.

Lydia is a friend now, and frankly that ship sailed (without him in it), and he’d rather have her respect and friendship than her romantic interest.

Scott doesn’t need protecting (most of the time, let’s be real). He’s one badass creature of the night who may not always be playing with a full deck, but now he has claws and teeth and superhuman speed and strength.

And his dad, well, he’s tried, and he going to keep on trying. He rations the junk food and risks his life (and other peoples’) and everyone’s sanity to make sure his dad keeps healthy and alive.

But now he doesn’t know what to do, because the nogitsune killed Lydia’s boyfriend, and Scott’s first love, and stabbed Scott, and probably almost gave his dad several heart attacks and planted a bomb in the station where his dad works. 

And the worst part is that Stiles remembers doing every bit, and he remembers liking it. A lot. He remembers liking the shivers of pleasure as he watched people die. He remembers the feeling of the katana in Scott’s abdomen and how he had relished the squelch of rendered flesh and blood.

The worst part—and this is something that he tries to deny and tries not to think about and hates, hates, hates—is that he misses it. He misses the rush and the thrill and liking the terrible things that he did.

And that is one more reason why his dream terrifies him so much. Because he knows that whoever that prone figure is, whatever happened to them, that it’s probably violent and bad, and he felt the need to rush to their side more than anything, but Stiles isn’t sure if that’s because he would be trying to stop something bad from happening, or enjoying the bloody results.

Either way, he’s terrified.  
  



	2. Not So Fast, Friend Of Mine

Stiles is standing in the boy’s locker room at school. The last thing he remembers is sitting in history class trying to ignore Scott’s concern. He’s not sure why he’s here now, or how he even got here. When he looks around, he identifies the same matte color tone that heralded his last dream.

But this time, Derek is here too.

‘ _Great_ ,’ Stiles thinks. This is just what he doesn’t need, dreaming about Derek. The ex-alpha is the last werewolf that he needs to be dreaming about. The broody sourwolf, and Malia’s cousin. And Malia is also something that he doesn’t want to be thinking about, especially what they’re doing, or rather, aren’t doing anymore. And really, Malia is the last person he wants invading his thoughts when he’s dreaming of Derek freaking Hale.

Stiles slides two steps closer and then pauses.

Derek is hunched on a bench, radiating some strong, tense emotion that Stiles would label as fear if he didn’t know better. He looks up and finds Stiles eye’s easily, as though he expected Stiles to be there, like they were in the middle of a conversation and Stiles was only momentarily distracted.

“It was a dream. Actually it was more like a nightmare.” His voice is strained and quick. 

“Okay,” Stiles says. “What happened?”

Derek can’t keep his hands still. “It started with the hunters that caught Peter and me after we left Cora. It was a family of them led by a guy named Severo… They broke into my loft. I thought they wanted Cora, but they were asking about a ‘She Wolf.’ And then someone else came, and attacked them….”

“Who was it?” Stiles prompts when Derek’s shoulders sink further.

“There’s a lot of myths about how people can be turned into a werewolf,” Derek says instead of answering. “Usually a bite. Then there’s one about rainwater.”

“Drinking rainwater out of the puddle of a werewolf’s print,” Stiles confirms with a nod, his arms crossed. 

He really doesn’t like where this is going. 

Stiles knows, he can’t figure out how, but he knows this all has something to do with that figure on the floor in the loft. And he also knows that Derek has been through more shit than anyone should ever have to be put through and if he’s this scared, and yes, Stiles decides that this is the image of Derek Hale one ‘boo!’ away from wetting his briefs—or boxers, which is not what he should be thinking about right now… The point is that Derek is a big bad werewolf who has been tortured and lost everything and has killed and been almost killed, who has faced down all sorts of monsters and who has survived, and if he’s so scared that he’s almost shaking, then Stiles thinks that maybe it’s time to run away screaming.

But he doesn’t, because this is a dream.

“There’s another one,” Derek says, the tension building in the lines of his face. “A scratch, if the claws go deep enough.” He looks to the floor.

“Derek, this is all just a dream, why do you look so worried,” Stiles says, sinking to the bench. What a mind-fuck. He’s dreaming about Derek recounting his own dream. 

With a small, almost frantic shaking of his head, Derek looks up at Stiles. 

“Because I don’t remember waking up,” he says, and Stiles wonders how he could have missed the sheer panic that Derek feels. “So—so tell me, how do you know? How do you know if you’re still dreaming?”

The answer is too easy.

“Fingers. In dreams you have extra fingers.”

Derek lunges forward and grabs Stiles’ left wrist and Stiles’ breath stutters when they both look at his hand. He watches Derek’s eyes count the six digits.

He looks gutted, wrecked, and his eyes find a spot behind Stiles, to the left of his ear.

“It’s real,” Derek says and falls forward onto his knees. He looks in pain, and his hand flies up to his stomach. “You’re real.”

Stiles turns around, to find the spot where Derek is staring, in horror, and suddenly, he’s no longer in the locker room. He’s back in the loft, smoke clearing, with a very much intact and seemingly alive Kate Argent approaching.

“Yes, Derek,” she says, her leather jacket unzipped and a smirk on her lips. She takes no notice of Stiles gaping. “And if you think that’s a surprise, watch this.”

She smiles, and then her face freakin’ changes. Not like Scott or Derek when they grow their mutton chops and lose their eyebrows, but something scarier, more purple, and a lot less human. 

And she roars. 

  
***

  
“Stiles!” Scott’s voice comes out somewhere between a hiss and a growl, and he lurches upright.

Stiles glances around the room. Every single one of his classmates is staring at him.

The locker room is gone. The loft is gone. Derek is gone. And thank-fucking-goodness, but Kate is gone too. So it really was a dream, again. A terrifying, confusing dream, but a dream nonetheless. He glances down to his open textbook and reads the first line of words just to make sure, and sighs.

“Well Mr. Stilinski,” Mr. Yukimura says expectantly.

“McCarthyism,” Kira says out of the corner of her mouth. “The answer is McCarthyism.”

“Kira, please,” her father says and Kira offers an apologetic cringe before her father sighs. “Yes. Stiles, McCarthyism is the answer I was looking for. Please pay attention. As we know the extent of the movement was only able to be sustained and perpetuated through what many critics, even of the time, claim was blatant propaganda and fear-mongering.”

Stiles leans back in his seat and runs his hands through his hair, tuning out the lecture. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but knows that he must have. Scott is staring at him, concern again furrowing his brow, and Stiles know that his friend must be able to hear his racing heart and smell his fear.

He closes his eyes and tries to calm his breathing.

His dream doesn’t make any sense. Why would he dream about Kate Argent? Maybe Allison…. Nope, not thinking about that. Okay, so why would he dream about Derek? Well, besides several very obviously and persistently un-ignorable reasons….

Stiles rubs at his hair again. The calming down isn’t working. If anything, his pulse is faster. 

“Stiles,” Scott whispers furiously. “Calm down. Your heart’s beating too fast.”

Without glancing at Scott, Stiles tries again, counting his breaths in and out, but the memories of his dreams catch him again. The look of pure horror on Derek’s face, and how he fell to his knees. His expression of pain, and the more fleeting one of fear. And the body on the floor that he dreamt about last night. How he needed to get to that body, lying where Derek knelt. 

He needs to get to that body.

Because as much as he knows, without a doubt, that he was dreaming, he has the horrible sinking no good feeling again of impending consequences, and he can’t stop thinking about what Derek said. Derek was dreaming. But his last words.

It’s real.

Just because it’s a dream doesn’t mean it isn’t real.

“Mr. Stilinski, what are you doing?”

Stiles opens his eyes in surprise. He’s already on his feet, the strap of his backpack looped over his arm, his book untouched on his desk. 

“I, uh…”

“Stiles?” Scott is also on his feet.

“It’s real,” Stiles says. “I think it’s real.” He rushes to the door, and passes a frowning Mr. Yukimura.

“Mr. McCall, please return to your seat. Mr. Stilinski,” he says, but Stiles is already out the door, running through the hallways and out to his jeep. 

Stiles knows a little about the conversation that his dad had with Kira’s parents. There were a lot of phrases like ‘psychological trauma’ bandied about, and if any teacher would be okay with Stiles running out of class like a maniac, it’s probably Mr. Yukimura. Though, he’ll most likely report it back to the Sheriff, and then Stiles really will have to go to that therapist. They aren’t worried about the nogitsune anymore. They’re all just worried about how broken Stiles is now that it’s gone. 

But leaving class is the right decision. He no longer feels like his heart will beat out of his chest. He still is sick with terrible fear, but it’s been downgraded from Mount Doom level to Isengard. 

Stiles doesn’t realize where he is driving until he makes the second turn to Derek’s loft, and he swallows a sudden lump in his throat. He really really really doesn’t want to go back to the loft. He doesn’t want to see the familiar interior and wide windows. He doesn’t want to step back into his dream—into either of them.

But his feet pull him from the jeep and drag him into the building. It’s like he’s being compelled, and he doesn’t think that he’s strong enough to fight it. He already used up all of his fight with the nogitsune. There isn’t anything else left. 

He only manages to stop himself outside of the large sliding door, his heart rabbiting in his chest and sweat cooling on his neck. The air smells tinged with burnt and blood and Stiles again hopes that he is imagining things.

His stomach fizzes momentarily with anticipation, the trickster’s scars; there is a small part of him that hopes for blood.

Stiles fails to notice what his hands are doing until they are already on the door and it slides open in front of him. His first step lands on a shell casing, and it rockets out from under his foot, skittering across the floor and rolling to a stop against the solid weight of a motionless body. 

“Fuck, fuckity, fuck,” Stiles says. He can’t move. 

His dreams.

Derek. 

“It’s real.”  
  



	3. Wake Me Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s easier to focus on the dying-maybe-dead Derek in front of him than to think about the fact that his dreams were real.

  
  
And the understanding that this is all real seems to break whatever spell held him immobile, because he’s sprinting across the room to Derek’s side.

Derek’s dressed as he was in Stiles’ dream—jeans, dark Henley. But now there is blood on his closed mouth and an enormous hole in his chest, and Stiles doesn’t think that he’s breathing.

“No, no, no,” he whispers, maybe to himself, and his fingers try to find the pulse in Derek’s neck. They fumble over dried blood and rough stubble, but fail to find warmth or life under the smooth, cool skin. 

Stiles moves his hands to Derek’s torso, and the valley in the center that is a dark mess of red blood and something black and stained bones, broken.

“Oh shit,” Stiles moans, and collapses to a seat at Derek’s side. It only takes a second for the viscous puddle of blood to soak through his pants. “Why aren’t you healing, dammit?!” 

It’s easier to focus on the dying-maybe-dead Derek in front of him than to think about the fact that his dreams were real.

He catapults himself forward, aiming for the werewolf’s face, and punches him with everything he’s got. 

Stiles shakes out his hand, and except for the pain shooting up his arm and a gentle lolling of Derek’s head, nothing happens. 

“What the hell!” Stiles demands. “I can’t even give you CPR, there are like no lungs left, and holy shit.” He realizes that he’s shaking and his hands are covered in blood, just like the rest of him. He wipes at his face, and wonders if the moisture he feels is tears or more blood.

Derek’s lost too much blood, even for a werewolf. 

“Oh god, Derek,” Stiles manages to say. He should call someone, like Scott, or Deaton. He should call anyone, but all that he can do it sit here and shake. And stare at the lifeless sallow face in front of him.

“You can’t fucking die,” he shouts. “It’s not fair! We were doing so good. We beat the fucking nogitsune, and the Alphas and the Darach and even your psycho uncle, and you didn’t hate me anymore, and dude! We were good, finally. And you were the only one here who got it.”

Derek was the only one who didn’t look at Stiles after the nogitsune like he was either broken or about to break. He was the only one who didn’t ask over and over if he was okay. He was the only one who didn’t go quiet and uncomfortable and sneak conflicted glances at Stiles when the nogitsune’s victims were mentioned. Derek was the only one around whom Stiles felt that it wasn’t his fault. Around Derek, Stiles wasn’t a murderer.

“I saved your life too many fucking times for you to die on me now!”

Stiles’ fist connects with Derek’s shoulder, a dull thud, and then nothing. 

The feeling returns, and Stiles knows that something bad is about to happen. He doesn’t care, not really, because something bad already happened. And like the sensation from his first dream, it’s too late, he couldn’t stop it. 

Stiles looks at the hole in Derek’s chest, larger than a cantaloupe, and feels the twinges of elation. He rolls to the side, blood smearing up his arm, and vomits away from Derek. He gags on his fourth heave, and coughs the acid and mucous from his mouth. 

What kind of sick bastard is he that he finds any enjoyment from his friend’s brutal death? From Derek’s broken body?

Stiles wipes a bloody hand across his mouth and swings back around to the werewolf’s side. 

And he can’t help it. He tries, but he can’t.

Stiles sobs as his hand sinks into the squelching tangle of Derek’s open wound, the cool blood and flesh seeming to congeal around his skin. It feels good.

How long has it been since Derek was shot? Since Stiles’ most recent dream? Since his first dream?

The presentiment returns, and Stiles gasps, trying to control his body, trying to control the joyful adrenaline spiking through his limbs.

He refuses to be the nogitsune. He refuses to be broken by it. He refuses to spread its poison, leech its destruction. He thought he used up all his fight against that damn fox, but he still has something left. 

He has everything that he feels and wishes he didn’t feel about one very sour and now very dead wolf.

And if there ever was a stubborn bastard, his name is Stiles Stilinski, and he refuses to be some demon’s bitch even after it was exorcised. 

The more he fights against this feeling, the stronger and more oppressive it becomes. But he won’t yield, because Derek may be dead, and fuck that, but Stiles is not going to feel good about it. Stiles gets to feel terrible about this, the nogitsune can’t take that away from him, because this is Derek, and Stiles can’t feel anything but miserable in a world where he isn’t alive.

So no, the nogitsune won’t win, and Stiles knows this now, because even after saving Derek’s life a couple of times, he has just realized that maybe Derek should be on that list with Scott and his dad, and Stiles has no idea how that happened, or when, but there isn’t anything that Stiles wouldn’t do for Derek, dead or alive.

He feels the moment when he’s won. The feeling of doom lessens, but the adrenaline doesn’t. Stiles’ hand in Derek’s chest feels hot and scalding, like the mass it’s in is burning, or his hand itself, and though he tries, he can’t remove it. Just like his feet walked him in here, he has no control over his arm. 

“Fuck,” Stiles groans, the pain lancing up his arm, and more tears work their way down his cheeks, loosening tracks in the blood drying there.

“If only,” he says as he continues to cry. There are a lot of things that Stiles wishes were different in his life. He stopped making a list years ago when he realized that it only made the pain of his mom not coming back even worse. But out of everything that would make that list, right now Derek not being dead is definitely at the top of it.

“You should be alive, you asshole,” Stiles tells him with the unspoken and not me. 

And then the pain radiating from his hand charges through the rest of Stiles’ body, and he screams before collapsing over Derek.

The darkness, when it comes, is welcome.  
  



	4. Or Dare You Find

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Derek?” Stiles’ voice is much smaller and softer than he would like.

 

Everything hurts. Every little bit of Stiles that he can feel throbs with pain. But his hand and his head hurt the most, and Stiles can’t imagine why. 

Stiles also can’t imagine where he is, what’s going on, or even when it is, so it’s not really a surprise that he can’t figure out why he hurts all over. Nope, not hurt—that’s too much of an understatement. Excruciating pain is more accurate.

He takes a couple breaths to orient himself, not yet ready to open his eyes. Headaches are always worse when your eyes are open, and Stiles doesn’t think that he can handle an increase in pain without one or two good screams, and that’s not something he has enough energy for at the moment.

He’s moving, he thinks. Maybe a car, or even a train, though he hears nothing from his surroundings that would indicate either. It’s more of an undulating swell beneath him, like gentle waves under a boat. It’s soft and warm and comforting. He’s safe, he thinks. That’s good—no need to rush about the business of opening his eyes, then.

Stiles’ left hand, the one in more pain, moves slowly over the sticky plane of a hard surface. The hard surface that is moving. Stiles pats it. It’s very firm, quite firm, but still soft, except for the gunk that covers it. He is about to gird himself to open his eyes when a voice makes him freeze.

“Uh, Stiles…?” The words come from above.

He realizes that he’s actually lying on something, and that his right cheek is pressed hard against the very same surface his left hand has been exploring.

“Stiles, what are you doing?”

“I’m waiting for my body’s pain tolerance to be reached so I can pass out again, please, thank you,” he mumbles.

A hand, warm, large, and slightly callused, finds its way to Stile’s nape, and with it the cool release of his suffering. He sighs with sudden clarity, and then stills.

“Derek?” Stiles’ voice is much smaller and softer than he would like.

“Stiles?” Derek replies and Stiles shoves himself upright and gapes at the werewolf.

Derek is still on his back, and he doesn’t raise his head to look at Stiles. There is confusion in his eyes, and concern, but also amusement and something that might be frustration. 

Stiles grabs the older man’s face, hard, checks his pulse (going strong, not too fast), pats down a very sticky, very bloody, very muscular, and yet very intact torso, and then pinches himself, too hard.

“Argh!” Stiles shouts. “Bloody fucking hell, what the fuck?”

Derek raises himself onto his elbows but doesn’t move beyond that because Stiles is crouched over him and has Derek’s left leg trapped. His dark eyebrows come together as he watches Stiles catalogue the situation.

“You’re dead,” Stiles finally says.

“Why am I dead?”

“I’m dreaming,” Stiles concludes. He then counts his fingers and pinches himself again. “Okay, not dreaming. I’m hallucinating.”

“What are you hallucinating?”

“You.”

“Stiles, what the hell is going on?”

“You’re dead,” Stiles says and races a hand through his hair. It’s shaking and covered in dark flaking blood. 

“It would appear that I’m not,” Derek says, though his gaze pauses on the expansive stain of his blood and the way Stiles’ clothes are dark and stiff with it.

“That is what it appears,” Stiles says, giving Derek a poke, right where the gaping hole in his chest used to be. “But I’m not convinced, because you were dead, and I am very convinced that you were dead. But usually being dead comes after being alive and not the other way around, so if we’re adhering to a standard progression of logic I’m gonna go with being skeptical of you being alive.”

“Stiles.”

“Which you seem very alive, which is a thing… you know, maybe that’s in my head, or the whole you being dead is what I actually hallucinated, though the shear quantity of your blood here more than supports my theory that I didn’t imagine that.”

“Stiles.”

“Yeah?” He looks to the werewolf, and his hands pause their continued pat-down, one still on Derek’s chest, the other caressing his neck.

“Can I get up?” Derek asks, his eyebrows rising and face otherwise blank.

“Right,” Stiles says, flailing off of him and making sure to avoid the pool of vomit. So at least that happened. “I, uh,” he says, lurching to his feet and watching Derek follow suit, albeit much more gracefully. “I seriously thought you were dead. No,” he pauses and Derek examines him, still only several feet separating them. Stiles wants to breach that space and gather the man in his arms so that he can be really truly sure that he’s alive and breathing and whole. But he doesn’t.

“You were dead,” he says, instead. “There was a hole the size of a melon in your chest. You were missing most of your lungs and half of your ribs, I kid you not, I think I could see your heart, and it wasn’t beating! You see this blood?” Stiles waves his arms over the quite alarming puddles of dark red. “That is your blood, all of it! You were definitely, completely, entirely, one hundred percent dead!”

“Okay.”

“Okay? I tell you that you were dead and you say okay? How is this okay?”

“Stiles.”

“Don’t _Stiles_ me! Don’t you see the problem here?”

Derek steps forward and captures Stiles’ out-flung arms and presses the shaking hands to his own chest. It’s close to what Stiles wants, but not close enough.

“See, I’m alive. There is no gaping open wound on my body. Yes, that’s a lot of blood, but I’m fine.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

Derek’s eyebrows rise again.

“I agree, you’re fine, now,” Stiles says. “But you shouldn’t be. You weren’t healing. You were really really dead. Like cold and dead, dead. This wasn’t thanks to your werewolf mojo that you’re all good and healed. Not that I’m not glad, because dude, it’s really nice that you aren’t dead, I mean… but you should be dead,” he says rather than explaining just how glad he is. 

Maybe Stiles is the only one who actually needs to know the extent of his own relief at Derek’s continued existence. Any more relieved, and Stiles wouldn’t be able to stop himself from flinging his arms around Derek and sobbing, which is not really something that he actually wants to do, but he has the impulse, which is, you know, whatever, not something he wants to think about at the moment.  

At least Derek’s doesn’t release Stiles’ hands. If anything he grips them tighter, and Stiles can feel the beating of Derek’s heart under his fingers as it pumps his blood. It’s not as good as a strong hug, but it has to be enough.

“You aren’t dead,” Stiles finally says, and Derek drops his hands suddenly, and steps away. “So what the hell happened?”

“Well, I was shot,” he replies with a faint, almost humorous quirk to his lips.

“Yeah, I got that. So who shot you? Severo or Kate Argent?”

Derek’s mouth drops open in surprise, but his brow creases. Stiles is getting better at reading his face, after all, Derek doesn’t just brood and sulk, but he doesn’t know this expression. Suspicion?

“How the hell did you know that?” the werewolf demands. He steps forward and Stiles steps back, and they keep on going until there is a wall at Stiles’ back and Derek’s hand is on his shoulder, too close to his neck for Stiles’ liking because he can feel the tips of claws pressing into his flesh.

“How did you know?” He growls. There is anger and fear on his face, and a hint of loss, like he was betrayed and Stiles looks away. “Answer me Stiles! Or I’m going to rip your throat out with my teeth!”  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the shortness of this chapter (yet again), but I'll try to post again this weekend. Thanks for reading, and I love the kudos and comments!!


	5. Abandoned Treads Of Thine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Calm down, Stiles. You aren’t crazy.”  
> “I know!” he shouts. “That’s what’s fucking terrifying me!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me. Here's another chapter!  
> Note that the chapters will probably continue to be around this length, hopefully a bit longer (especially the later ones).

 

The grip on his shoulder is sure to bruise and Stiles reads desperation in Derek’s face and the knowledge that if Stiles answers incorrectly, he might actually get his throat ripped out this time. If only he knew what Derek would take to be a wrong answer. He hasn’t been truly scared of Derek in years, but that might change really soon because Stiles can tell that Derek is fucking serious. 

“You won’t believe me,” he says, his voice small again.

Derek closes his eyes, like he needs to steady himself before he continues, and Stiles glances to where his mouth is still reddened by blood.

“Werewolf,” Derek reminds him. “I can hear if you lie.”

Stiles raises his gaze to Derek’s eyes and sees the fear still there, but also something that looks like hope. He swallows before speaking.

“You told me,” he whispers. 

“What.” Derek’s frown has returned.

“In the locker room at the high school.”

“I haven’t been to your high school,” Derek says, but his eyes narrow in contemplation.

“I was in class,” Stiles explains, voice still quiet, Derek’s face scant inches from his own. “And I fell asleep…. And I dreamt that we were in the locker room, and you told me what happened and you asked…”

“I asked how to tell if you were still dreaming,” Derek finishes and releases Stiles from his hold. “When was this?” he asks and steps back several paces, allowing Stiles to slide away from the wall.

“Couple of hours before noon. When were you shot?”

“It was dark out,” Derek says, but doesn’t continue.

So that must mean that Derek had probably already been shot by the time Stiles had his first dream and then bled out until he died.

“How?” Stiles starts. “I thought I was going crazy…”

“Why did you come here?” Derek walks away as he asks, skirting the blood and stepping toward the windows.

Stiles doesn’t answer, just shrugs, but Derek doesn’t see, because he’s turned away. 

“Because I thought you were dead,” Stiles says. “And I was right.”

“I’m not, though.”

“Not now. A little bit ago you were really dead and missing some pretty important pieces of your torso,” he says. Important pieces like lungs and a liver and a heart and his wonderful abs.

Derek shakes his head. “Stiles, what you’re saying doesn’t make sense.” He runs his hand over his intact stomach, skin perfect and smooth. “My healing doesn’t work like that. It would take me a lot longer to recover from something like you described. There are no marks on my skin.”

“I know!” Stiles pushes away from the wall against which he had been leaning. “Something freaky is going on, Derek, and I’m thinking up some pretty fucking crazy explanations at the moment, because as much as I’d like to be going insane right now, I don’t really think that’s happening.”

Derek swings around at the panic in Stiles’ voice. “Calm down, Stiles. You aren’t crazy.”

“I know!” he shouts. “That’s what’s fucking terrifying me!”

The werewolf is at his side in less than a second, a large warm hand spread over his shoulder. The pounding in Stiles’ head is only surpassed by the frenetic beating of his heart. Derek jostles his shoulder and finally Stiles looks up, his panic momentarily under control.

“Why are you freaking out?”

Stiles shakes his head.

“Stiles.”

“If I’m not crazy, then there’s something going on with my head,” he whispers, as though by speaking the words aloud it makes this explanation all the more possible. 

Derek’s eyebrows sink into a frown, he narrows his eyes and tilts his head. 

“If I’m not in control of everything that’s going on inside my head, Derek, then who, or rather, what is?”

The werewolf raises his head, and swallows slowly. “You think…”

“Yeah,” Stiles interrupts before Derek can finish the terrible thought. If there’s something going on with his head, and they use the logic of following the simplest explanation, well, then this has entirely everything to do with the nogitsune, and Stiles just got that bastard out of his head. Or not.

“But it’s gone. It’s trapped. It isn’t in you anymore. I was there when Deaton tested you, it can’t be the nogitsune, Stiles.”

“I don’t know what else it could be,” he admits. “It makes sense. Shared dreams are something a nogitsune can do. I, uh…” Stiles pauses and clears his throat. Derek’s hand doesn’t move from his shoulder. “After everything went down, I learned everything that I could about nogitsunes. I think I was trying to figure out a way to make sure that it would never happen again, and that’s not something that I found. But… Derek, it fits, everything about it. It can manipulate life forces, walk in peoples’ dreams…”

“No.” His answer is harsh and loud. “It’s not it.”

“Then what is it?”

Derek steps back, his hand tightening at the back of Stiles’ neck before dropping away. “I don’t know, but it can’t be that.” He moves away, his voice certain, but the lines of his body unusually hesitant. “Deaton will know.”

Stiles nods. “Yeah, okay. We’ll go with the whole innocent until proven guilty schtick. Which, I have to remind you, is a terrible idea if we are dealing with a nogitsune, because those fuckers are alway guilty. Always.” His voice breaks on the last word, when he can’t help but remember all of the pain, suffering, and death that he and the nogitsune are responsible for. Guilty seems an insufficient sentence. 

“Let’s go,” Derek says, nodding towards the door.

“Don’t you want to change first?” Stiles queries. “Maybe mop up your impressive puddle of blood, I dunno, seems like that might be a good idea, because it looks like someone was murdered here.”

“Well, according to you, someone was murdered here.” He strips of the remains of his shirt and raises his eyebrows at Stiles.

“Yeah,” he says, and looks away from the maroon streaks covering Derek’s skin. 

The werewolf pulls out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt from a chest in the corner and walks them to the downstairs bathroom.

“What?” Stiles asks when Derek heads up the stairs.

“You’re covered in blood, Stiles. You look like you just killed someone. Take a shower and change, then we’ll go.” He jogs up the rest of the stairs, shouting, “clean towels are under the sink.”

Stiles sighs and heads into the bathroom.

He peels his blood-crusted clothes away from his skin, and the dried bits fall in rusty flakes. He leaves the pile of the clothes on the floor and jumps into the shower, soaping every inch of his skin, twice, and scrubbing his hands until they are raw and the dark rims around his nail beds have disappeared. 

It takes only a moment of Stiles realizing that Derek has most likely used this shower, been naked right where Stiles is standing, for his dick to take interest. But no, that’s a terrible idea, what with werewolf hearing and smelling, because Derek would know if Stiles rubbed one out in his shower. It also takes only a moment for Stiles’ body to lose interest, because as soon as Stiles remembers the blood, Derek’s cold and broken body, he feels like vomiting again.

The clothes are too big for him, the t-shirt gaping open at the neck, and the drawstring of the pants pulled tight so the fabric bunches around his hips. 

“What, are you a girl?” Derek asks when Stiles steps out of the bathroom. His hair is damp and his clothes are new.

Stiles scoffs, but notices that the puddle of blood is more of a stain now and the vomit is gone, and Derek holds a half-full plastic trash bag in his right hand.

“That’s sexist.”

Derek frowns, perhaps wondering if Stiles’ tone is sarcastic enough to be joking rather than criticizing. 

“I just meant that you spent a long time in there. Laura would take forever, she…”

“It’s fine,” Stiles said when Derek stumbles over the words. “Let’s go to Deaton’s.”

Derek nods, in thanks maybe, and leads the way out of the loft. Before Stiles follows, he stoops to scoop up one of the bullet casings and tucks it into the pocket of his sweats. Derek stops him at the door.

“Just, I wanted to say…” his eyes search Stiles’. “Thank you for coming. You didn’t have to, and I know that, and I also don’t know what would have happened had you not come, so thank you.”

Stiles notes the hint of confusion in Derek’s gaze, and the tightness around his mouth, and the gravitas his eyebrows provide.

“No biggie,” Stiles sighs, and he doesn’t need to be a werewolf to hear the lie in those words. Derek nods his head in acknowledgment, and they leave.   
  


 


	6. For Written In Your Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s definitely not dreaming. Almost certainly not dreaming. Okay, he might be dreaming, but Stiles is leaning towards this being reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for not posting this until now. Again, it's on the short side, but later chapters will be longer!  
> Thanks for the comments and kudos!  
> Like always, all mistakes are my own.
> 
> WARNING: this chapter contains mention of suicide.

 

“Are you absolutely positive, Mr. Stilinski?”

They stand in the back room at the vet’s, a gleaming metal table separating Deaton from Stiles and Derek. 

“I know my brain hasn’t been super reliable lately, but I’m as sure as I can get,” Stiles says. “Plus, Derek can corroborate the dream, and if I didn’t imagine that, then I sure as hell didn’t imagine the Lazarus act that took Derek from absolutely dead to absolutely not.”

The werewolf in question shifts uncomfortably at Stiles’ side.

“I don’t know whether or not I was actually dead, but Stiles is right in the fact that there was a lot of blood. Even with my healing… that isn’t something that I think I could have survived.”

“He was minced meat,” Stiles adds. “He had a literal hole in his body, important organs far from intact, and I think part of his spine was missing. There was no way he was alive!”

Derek shuffles his feet. 

“What Stiles is trying to say is that we don’t really know anything at this point.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying, dude, don’t put words in my mouth just because you don’t like my theories.”

“Theories?” Deaton prompts.

“It’s not the nogitsune, Stiles,” Derek intones.

“How do you know that? It’s the best theory, so how can you say that when you literally just admitted that we know nothing?!”

“Boys,” the vet interrupts. “We know some things, so let’s start from there, alright?”

Stiles huffs and Derek nods for Deaton to continue.

“We know that Stiles was host to the nogitsune, but we also know that he no longer is, as all of my tests have been more than satisfactorily conclusive. So I am confident in telling you, Mr. Stilinski, that you are no longer being controlled by the nogitsune.”

Stiles doesn’t respond, but his shoulders relax, and exhales slowly.

“See?” Derek says. “I told you that the nogitsune has nothing to do with this.”

“Well,” Deaton says. “That’s not entirely accurate, Derek. In fact, I believe that the nogitsune is almost entirely responsible for this astounding act of… resurrection, which is both surprising and a relief as I’m sure that we all prefer you alive.”

“I thought you said that the nogitsune was gone!” Stiles exclaims. “If it’s gone then…” He pulls at his hair, leaving it in clumps, spiked upright, and takes several steadying breaths, pausing only to read the posted occupancy notice on the wall to his right. 

He’s definitely not dreaming. Almost certainly not dreaming. Okay, he might be dreaming, but Stiles is leaning towards this being reality. 

“The nogitsune is a very powerful magical entity,” Deaton explains, his words measured and not unkind. “As a host, the nogitsune’s magic blended with not only your own body, but with your own latent magic.”

“You said once that I had a spark?”

“Exactly,” Deaton says, obviously pleased with Stiles’ quick understanding. “Your experience with the nogtisune has altered, perhaps permanently, your body and spark. It left a… residue, of sorts.”

Derek narrows his eyes. “What type of residue?” he snaps.

Deaton shakes his head. “Of that, I am not certain. However, it is clear that the effects are significant. When a nogtisune inhabits a host, they use a portion of their magic and essence to make the host more hospitable—“

“To control the host, you mean,” Stiles interrupts.

“Yes. And in your case, I would say that the residue is surprisingly strong, unusually so. I have a feeling that it will be permanent.”

“So the nogitsune left part of itself in me? So what, now I’m like some corrupted used ex-demon-host? Like I’m part nogitsune?” Stiles’ voice is frantic, his heart beating at a suddenly hurried clip. “I thought that the darkness from the Nemeton was bad enough, I mean, that’s why the nogitsune got me in the first place, but now you’re telling me that I’m never going to be rid of the nogitsune, that it’s part of me now, that I’m stuck being a little bit evil, forever!?”

Derek’s hand falls heavily against the back of Stiles’ neck, and tightens in a warm grip.

“You’re not evil, Stiles,” he says, forcing the teen to look at his glowing blue eyes. “You can’t possibly be evil when you just saved my life. Whatever you did, whatever power the nogitsune left with you healed me. You did that. Not the nogitsune, not something evil. I know you Stiles, and you always do what you can to help people, even after the nogitsune, even after the Nemeton’s darkness. You did everything you could to help. That’s not evil.”

Stiles nods, but his breaths still come in short pants, Derek’s hand and eyes grounding him.

“He’s right,” Deaton says. “Power itself in neither good nor evil, it’s what you chose to do with that power that determines the nature of certain dictated moral judgements. You may have the residuals of the nogitsune’s powers, but without it controlling you, it’s evil nature is not necessarily transmitted. I believe the level of corruption is more commensurate to the depth of the residue—how much of itself the nogtisune imparted to you.”

“And how much did it leave with me?” Stiles croaks.

Deaton blinks. “Rather a lot, I believe, but perhaps not so much that your judgement is clouded. It seems that your personality has remained consistent, so I am not overly concerned at this point.”

“You said that the nogitsune’s residue is surprisingly strong?” Derek prompts when Stiles does not speak.

“Because of Stiles’ spark and his natural propensity to serve as a magical conduit, the nogitsune was bound to leave stronger traces, and it’s probably one of the reasons Stiles was chosen to begin with.”

“Not because of the darkness?” Stiles asks.

Deaton pauses. “The darkness opened the door,” he says. “But there are few doors in this world that a creature as powerful as the nogitsune cannot open. Your spark made you a very appealing host.”

“But there’s another reason why he was so effected?” Derek says.

“Yes, and that’s a testament to Stiles’ strength of character.”

Stiles frowns, leaning into Derek’s heavy presence at his right shoulder.

“Because of the resistance that Stiles put up, the nogitsune was forced to part with much more of itself in order to maintain it’s position.”

“Didn’t do any good,” Stiles whispers.

“I disagree, Mr. Stilinski. The nogitsune was forced to expend a great deal of effort in keeping you as it’s host and was therefore able to expend less energy in creating havoc and destruction. If anything, I believe that in another, less, uh, obstinate host, the nogitsune’s damage could have been trifold.”

Stiles glances from Deaton to Derek, noting the hint of a smile on the werewolf’s face. And something else—he looks proud. Of Stiles?

“So, I’m not going to become a nogitsune or something, right?” Stiles says, sarcasm not entirely leeching his words of true concern.

“Well, that depends,” Deaton says and Stiles deflates.

“Shit,” he says. “That’s not actually what I wanted to hear. I hoping to play that one off as a joke.” It’s like every single one of Stiles’ nightmares coming true. It’s worse than just the nogitsune returning, the demon possessing him. It’s him being evil, it’s Stiles himself becoming the demon.

Derek steps closer into Stiles’ space, so his chest pushes against Stiles’ entire right side. The warmth and pressure is a small comfort. 

“The nogitsune feeds on pain, Mr. Stilinski. If you, in your life, engage in pursuit of suffering and pain, yours or others, there is the risk that the part of the nogitsune that remains within you could blossom into something more… actualized.”

“So that’s a yes,” Stiles clarifies, panic again rising within him. “That’s a yes, Stiles, you better be careful, because if you go off the deep end and lose it at any point, you aren’t just gonna have a mental break, but you’re going to turn into some pain-eating chaos-causing demon that could destroy the world and everyone you love. Fantastic. Great.”

Stiles steps out of Derek’s hold, gives the two other men a poor imitation of a salute, and heads towards the exit. “I’m just gonna go, um, take care of something,” he says, and flees. 

It takes him until he’s outside of the building to realize that he doesn’t have his keys and that his jeep is still parked outside of Derek’s loft.

That’s okay. It’s only a mile walk back to his house, and he needs to think.

On some deep level, how deep depends on how guilty he feels in the moment, he wishes that Derek, or someone else, had just killed him when they had the chance, before Allison had died, before the nogitsune had made him commit too many irrevocable sins.

And after the nogitsune left, Stiles made himself a promise. He promised himself that he wouldn’t let something like the nogitsune happen again, no matter what. No matter what the costs to himself, and no matter what he had to do in order to avoid it. And no matter how much he hates it.

He has to make sure that the nogitsune doesn’t happen again.

He’s not going to let it.

What he regrets the most though, is that this is gonna kill his dad.  
  
  



	7. No Hasty Promise Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t do it,” he says, leveling Stiles with a cold glare. “Don’t you dare do it, I won’t let you.”
> 
> Stiles looks away, barely breathing into the space between them. It’s just another reminder that Derek understands. He gets it. “Do what?” Stiles says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
> 
> “Lie,” Derek hisses. “You know I know you better than that, Stiles,” he whispers, anger pushing him to close the distance between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter, but the following ones will be longer.  
> Thanks for kudos and comments!  
> As always, all mistakes are my own.  
>  
> 
> WARNING: this chapter contains a character contemplating suicide. Please skip if this is a trigger for you.

 

He needs to think of a way that will be easiest for his dad.

Dad can’t think that Stiles’ death is his fault.

Maybe Stiles can pretend to run away. Maybe he can make his dad think that Stiles is still alive, living happily somewhere. He can have someone send the sheriff letters every year. His dad would miss him, sure, but if Stiles dies, he knows that there is no universe in which his dad will not blame himself and think that there was something that he should have, could have done to save his son.

Stiles’ dad doesn’t deserve that. 

But no one deserves the nogitsune, and that’s all on Stiles, that’s his responsibility.

He only stops walking when he runs into a very solid, very warm obstacle.

“Get in the car.” Derek’s hands trap Stiles’ arms, and his voice leaves no room for argument. “Get in the damn car, Stiles, and don’t try anything because I will knock you out and drag you there if I need to.”

“Chill, dude!” Stiles says, trying to back away, but the grip is unrelenting.

Derek’s face is hard, his eyebrows furrowed in a very serious expression, and Stiles can find no sympathy in those lines.

“What the hell!”

“I’m not going to ask again. Get in the car,” Derek hisses.

“Jeez, okay, I’m going, don’t get your tail in a twist.”

Derek follows Stiles until he sinks into the Camaro’s passenger seat and closes the door. Derek slips in a moment later and throws one assessing glance at Stiles before revving the engine and pulling out onto the street. 

“What’s your damage?” Stiles demands when the silence stretches between them.

“Shut up, Stiles,” he says, speeding towards the loft. 

Once they arrive, Derek marches Stiles up the stairs, and doesn’t speak until the door is secured and he has Stiles backed against the wall.

“Oy,” Stiles says. “Are you regressing?”

“Don’t do it,” he says, leveling Stiles with a cold glare. “Don’t you dare do it, I won’t let you.”

Stiles looks away, barely breathing into the space between them. It’s just another reminder that Derek understands. He gets it. “Do what?” Stiles says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Lie,” Derek hisses. “You know I know you better than that, Stiles,” he whispers, anger pushing him to close the distance between them.

Stiles’ eyes flit between Derek’s own, and his lips, which are spread in a determined line. He doesn’t speak. 

“I know how you feel about what the nogitsune did…”

“What I did,” Stiles corrects.

“I know you think that if someone had just stopped you earlier, then Allison and Aiden and the others would still be alive.”

“It’s true.”

“It’s not,” Derek argues. “And it’s not how to solve this problem either.”

“At least we’re both on the same page about that,” Stiles scoffs. “At least you acknowledge that it’s a problem.”

Derek groans. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” Stiles admits, and Derek’s eyebrows rise slightly with surprise. “I don’t want it… I don’t want to do that, but it’s the only guarantee, Derek. It can’t happen again, it just can’t.”

“You don’t think that I haven’t wished that I could trade my life for my family’s?”

Stiles swallows, his eyes meeting Derek’s. The werewolf doesn’t know just how much Stiles thinks about him. “No, I imagine you’ve thought about that a lot.”

Derek steps back suddenly, straightens his shoulders and looks away. Stiles follows him further into the room, and watches Derek take several deep breaths.

“Just promise me something,” Derek says, his back still to Stiles. “Promise me that you won’t do it. Promise that you’ll give us a chance to find a solution that doesn’t involve your death.”

He doesn’t speak.

“Stiles!” Derek growls, swinging around to face the teen. “Promise, or I will go to your dad and the pack and they will stick you right back in Eichen House on suicide watch.”

Stiles gulps.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll promise, but only if you promise me something too.”

“What?” Derek asks, his face wary.

“Promise me that if something happens…. If I become… if I reach that point and we haven’t found another solution… Promise me that you will do what needs to be done to protect everyone.”

“Okay.”

“Even if it means that you have to kill me yourself.”

Derek freezes. 

Stiles pins him with his gaze. “Derek, you have to promise.”

He looks away. “If I promise, then you won’t…”

“If you promise to do what needs to be done, then I won’t kill myself… yet.”

Derek growls and grabs Stiles’ arm, almost tight enough to bruise. “You better fucking not.”

“So,” Stiles sighs. “What will it be?”

“I promise.”

“Even if,” Stiles prompts.

“Even if it means killing you, yes, Stiles.”

He nods. “Good, okay.”

Derek shakes his head, his hold on Stiles not wavering. “You have to say it too, and goddammit, I’ll hear it if you lie.”

“Ah, Sourwolf, don’t look so serious.”

“Stiles,” Derek growls, and a shiver runs down the teen’s spine.

“I promise that I won’t kill myself or ask you to kill me unless there is no other option.”

Derek’s eyes narrow.

“And as a final, last, ultimate resort,” Stiles adds. When Derek doesn’t relax his grip, Stiles continues. “And I’ll give us a chance to find a different solution

first, and I won’t do anything drastic until something actually happens that leaves me with no other choice.”

“And you’ll tell me first.”

“What?”

“That or Eichen House.”

“Fine. And I promise to tell you first, before I do anything.”

Derek searches his eyes, and seems to find what he’s looking for, because he releases Stiles and slowly steps away.

“Okay, good,” he says. “Now let’s figure out where we should start and bring our ideas back to Deaton, since you so maturely walked out in the middle of an important discussion.”

Stiles shrugs.

“And we can get the pack on it too.”

“No!” Stiles says. “We can’t tell the pack.”

Derek’s eyebrows do a little dance. “Kate is a danger to everyone, they need to know.”

“Okay, let’s tell them about Kate, but not about the nogitsune, not yet.”

“I don’t think—“

“Please,” Stiles begs. “Scott will never act normal again if we tell him. If he knows that I’ll forever be a little bit of the demon that killed his first love…? That’s not something we’ll be able to get past, especially not while we have other shit going on, like this whole Kate’s not actually dead and wants you dead fiasco.”

“The pack could help,” Derek argues.

“I’ll think about it, but just, not now, please?”

“Okay, but if I think that they need to know, later, I’m going to tell them, especially if it will help you.”

Stiles sighs. “Okay man.”

Derek sinks down onto the couch, and Stiles follows, ignoring the large maroon stain on the floor. It’s only a few feet away from the rug that covers the dark reminder of Boyd’s death. Stiles shivers. So much death in this place.

“Let’s start with everything that we know about nogitsunes in general,” Derek says. “I think it’ll give us a better sense of what your powers might be. And then you’re going to call Deaton and schedule a time to work with him independently, because he told me, after you left, that control is the most important thing for you to work on right now.”

“Why?”

“Because it will help stop you from…”

“Killing all of my friends?”

“No,” Derek says. “Well, yes. But I was going to say that it will help stop you from becoming like the nogitsune. Alan made it sound like control is the key factor to determining whether the nogitsune will be triggered.”

“Because Deaton knows everything and is always forthcoming with that information,” Stiles says, his words heavy with sarcasm.

Derek continues. “Without control, something small could trigger it, with control, you might reach a point where the nogtisune inside you won’t ever develop.”

“You make it sound like I’m carrying some disease.”

Derek lifts his eyebrows again.

“Fine,” Stiles says. “I’ll call Deaton, see what he has in mind.”

Derek grins. “Lots of meditation, I believe. So, you’re screwed.”

“Hey, you know what? Screw you!”

“No thanks,” the werewolf smirks and Stiles chokes. “Aren’t you calling Deaton?” Derek asks when Stiles continues to gape.

The teen frowns and then nods. He moves to stand, but Derek stops him with a hand on his knee.

“Thanks,” he says and Stiles shakes his head in confusion. “Thanks for not killing yourself. You’re not the only one who feels responsible for multiple deaths, and I don’t think I could handle having another one on my conscience.”

“Why would that be your fault?” Stiles asks.

Derek quirks his lips into a sad grin. “You’ve been nogitsune-free for a while now, and for some reason I’m the one that seemed to jumpstart all of this for you. Plus, I owe you my life, again. I can’t have you dying before I can settle that debt.”

Stiles smiles at that.

“Just, thanks,” Derek repeats.

“No problem, anytime,” Stiles says, his heartbeat clear.

Derek nods, and lets the boy stand, his eyes following Stiles’ tense shoulders as he calls the vet. 

Stiles just saved his life. Now it’s Derek’s turn.  
  
  
  
  



	8. Speak With Me My Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Scott knew about the nogitsune problem Stiles would never be let out of his sight. Scott would never trust him again. Not that Stiles should be trusted anymore. A nogitsune should never be trusted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerest apologies for not updating sooner. My life is in major transition at the moment, probably through the end of the month. So I might only be able to post once more in April, but should be back to regular updates in May.

 

“So…” Stiles stretches out the word, his fingers dancing over the leather of the couch, palm resting next to his knee.

“What?”

“So, I think that we have a pretty good handle on the nogitsune thing,” he says and Derek scoffs. “Okay,” he amends, “as good as we can get at the moment. I have important probably true dreams, I can heal people I guess, I can apparently raise the dead—yippee, here’s to my own zombie army, and I might have other terrifying powers I have yet to discover, like telekinesis and an affinity for fireflies. Plus I’m gonna learn zen stuff from Deaton and refrain from offing myself or going Monte Cristo or relishing in the suffering of others or—“

“Stiles!” Derek interrupts, face blank and eyes wide. “Say it again.”

He frowns. “I’m gonna meditate with Deaton and not kill myself. Happy?”

“No,” Derek growls. “The other part.”

Stiles squints at the werewolf. “What?”

Derek lunges across the couch, closing the distance between them. He reaches across the teen and places a large hand on the armrest, trapping Stiles in the corner of the couch.

“Say it again.”

“I think we have the nogitsune thing handled as much as we can right now,” he says, perplexed. “Now that we know some of my powers, I’m going to be zen with Deaton, not kill myself, not go on a revenge spree, not enjoy the suffering of others, not—“

“Stop.” Derek’s eyes narrow, his breath coming faster now, nostrils flaring on the inhale. His eyes roam over Stiles’s face, and he looks both sad and terrified.

“What?” 

“You’re lying,” he says. “Your heart, when you…” Derek glances away, and when he looks back, his brow is furrowed. 

“When?” Stiles asks, but he thinks he already knows.

Derek purses his lips, as though he can’t quite force himself to answer, and Stiles exhales on a sigh that turns into an unhappy chuckle.

“It’s the relishing in the suffering of others, isn’t it?” he asks, and he doesn’t need Derek’s minute nod to confirm. “Yeah… that’s, uh…”

“What?” Derek prompts when Stiles falls silent and looks down. “Tell me.”

“I, uh, ever since the nogitsune, I sort of, you know, like it…”

“Like what?”

“Blood,” he whispers. “Pain. When other people hurt.” Stiles speaks louder now, and faster. “I mean, I hate it, I don’t ever want it to happen, but then when it does, I get so excited it’s like a part of me comes alive, and it makes me feel sick but it feels really right and that makes me feel even worse, because the horrible truth is that there is a small part of me that misses the nogitsune.”

“Stiles.”

“And that makes me one sick fucker, and maybe that’s the real reason why I should be put down before the nogitsune takes over because Derek, once it happens, I won’t be able to fight back, not like last time. I’ll want it too much.”

“Stop!” Derek commands, shaking Stiles’ shoulders briefly before pressing their foreheads together. He stares the younger man down, and then sweeps a brusk thumb under each of Stiles’ eyes and wipes away the moisture of unexpected tears.

“It’s not you,” Derek says. “Stiles, that isn’t you. It wasn’t you before the nogitsune, and the only reason you are feeling that way now is because it’s something that the nogitsune left in you. It’s the residue that Deaton spoke of. It’s not you.”

“Maybe it didn’t start out as a part of me,” Stiles says. “But it is now, and that, if anything, shows how broken and fucked up I am. A little darkness in my soul—yeah, I could deal with that. But this… This is like psychopathic serial killer shit. And what happens when it takes over and it’s the only thing that matters?”

“Shh. No, don’t say that. It’s not going to happen. You can control it Stiles, I know you can. This doesn’t make you broken, if anything it shows how strong you are. You weren’t lying earlier when you said that it makes you sick, when you said that you don’t want it, that you hate it. Hold on to that, you have to remember that.”

Stiles focuses on Derek’s words, taking long, slow breaths and letting the heat of the hands on his head seep in. He closes his eyes, listens to Derek’s steady breathing, and concentrates on trying to match that. And he remembers finding Derek’s body in the loft, and the sick rush of elation he felt at the blood and organs, and how good the congealing blood felt against his skin and how damn hard he fought against it until he beat that feeling back and he won and Derek lived. He did it once, he can do it again. He just doesn’t know if he can do it if Derek isn’t the thing that’s at stake.

Derek pulls back once Stiles’ breathing is again measured.

“So what do I do…”

“If you feel inappropriate joy at blood and suffering?” Derek supplies, he corner of his mouth creasing.

“When,” Stiles corrects and the werewolf’s frown returns. “When, not if.”

“I don’t know, but I want you to tell me, okay?”

Stiles nods once, a jerky movement that speaks completely of teenage boy and nothing of an ancient evil chaos demon.

“And just remember that those feelings aren’t yours, they’re the nogitsune’s. Remember that it isn’t you. That you aren’t evil.”

Stiles swallows twice and then takes a deep breath.

“What were you going to say earlier?” Derek asks when the teen doesn’t say anything.

He then sighs. “Just that we should probably focus on the Kate problem now, get the pack over here, update everyone, figure out what she might want and what we’re going to do.”

“School’s over soon,” Derek comments. “You should rally the troops while I try to make my puddle of blood smell slightly less like death and your puddle of vomit slightly less offensive.”

Stiles nods and cringes when he glances at the large stain.  
  
  


***  
  
  
“So how did you know Derek was in trouble?” Scott asks once they are all gathered at the loft. “And running out like that was seriously uncool. You should have sent me a text—I was freaking out, man.”

Stiles shrugs. “Had a feeling,” he says, and it doesn’t register as a lie, but Stiles knows that Scott doesn’t believe that to be the whole truth.

“And why are you wearing Derek’s clothes?” Malia asks. “They don’t fit. You have less muscle than Derek they make you look really scrawny.”

He groans. “Seriously? I play lacrosse. I have muscles! These clothes might not show them off, but mine were a little covered in blood and a lot disgusting.”

“Derek’s blood,” Lydia says.

“Right.”

“But he’s fine now,” she adds.

“Right.”

“Even though he died this morning.”

“What?!” Derek and Stiles are not the only ones to exclaim. Scott gapes, his expression shifting between confusion and concern. Kira just frowns.

“How… why do you say that?” Stiles asks, his voice high and slightly panicky.

Lydia shrugs. “I woke up screaming early this morning. At the time I attributed the premonition to my dream, but now it makes sense if it was Derek’s impending death I felt. That was around five a.m. You look surprisingly vivacious for someone who is recently deceased.”

“Lydia, he’s not dead,” Scott says. “Trust me.”

The banshee narrows her eyes. “Not dead now, no, I see that you’re correct. However I refuse to compromise the validity of my earlier assessment, Derek definitely died. So how is it that you are not dead now, Derek?”

The man in question shrugs. “Another mystery, but hardly the most pressing one,” he says and Stiles’ shoulders relax. “Can we please return to what we are going to do about Kate?”

“We have to figure out what she wants,” Stiles says.

“Dude, that’s obvious. She wants Derek dead,” Scott says.

“Yeah, but why? And what’s the deal with her being a creature of the night? Actually, what’s the deal with her being alive? I mean, if she was turned, and not into a werwolf, by a scratch, why did it take her all of this time to come back and seek her revenge, and why did she come to kill Derek when it was Peter that actually killed her, and why—“

“Okay, I get it,” Scott interrupts. “There are a lot of things that we don’t know. I’ll ask Deaton about what she could be.”

“No!” Stiles’s voice is harsh. “No, I’ll ask Deaton,” he says when he realizes that he never requested that the vet keep the information about the nogitsune confidential. “You see if you can get in touch with Chris, and Lydia can look through the bestiary.”

“Only if I’m provided a better description to work with,” Lydia says expectantly, raising her eyebrows at Derek.

“Blue skin.”

“More purplish,” Stiles corrects immediately.

Lydia assesses him. “Maybe let the person who actually saw her give me the description?”

Stiles’ heart races with the realization that he almost spilled another secret. If Scott knew about the nogitsune problem Stiles would never be let out of his sight. Scott would never trust him again. Not that Stiles should be trusted anymore. A nogitsune should never be trusted.

“Yeah,” Derek confirms. “A blue, purplish color. Big teeth. More feline-looking I guess.”

“You guess?”

Derek shrugs. “I wasn’t exactly lucid after she shot and apparently killed me, so I apologize if my description fails to meet your standards. If you can’t work with that then—“

“I didn’t say that,” Lydia interjects and Derek fails to hide a brief smile. 

“Good,” Stiles claps his hands together. “Let’s get to work.”

“Wait,” Kira says before Scott can leap to his feet. “Derek shouldn’t stay here.”

“Why not?” Derek asks.

“Because Kate assumes that you’re dead. You need to lay low, and that means not being in your apartment if she comes back looking for you or a body. It’s pretty much the only advantage that we have now.”

“The fox is right,” Malia says. “It’s cheating to play a trick like that, but it probably hurts less to only die once, so you should listen to her. But only when she says something clever like this. Usually I don’t recommend listening to foxes.”

“Okay,” Derek grins. 

“Good,” Stiles says.

“I guess that I’ll have to stay with Stiles then,” Derek adds, looking a little too excited about the prospect.

“Yeah. Wait, what? No!”

Scott frowns, glancing between the two of them. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

“Dude!” Stiles exclaims. “How could you?”

He shrugs. “We don’t know what Kate wants, Stiles. This way Derek can keep an eye on you and your dad,” Scott says, his grin confident.

Stiles deflates. “Yeah, fine, okay,” he says. Anything to protect his dad.

“Yeah Stiles,” Derek says. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on you,” he smirks.

Stiles glares at him, but there is also a small lessening of the knot of tension in his chest. If Derek is there, he can monitor the nogitsune in Stiles. If the werewolf is there, Derek can kill him before Stiles kills his dad. Derek is staying with Stiles. That’s good.

The downside, of course, is that Derek is staying with Stiles.

Oh, he’s screwed.    
  
  
  
  



	9. Nor New Oath To Make

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He shuffles over to Stiles’ bed and situates himself on the very edge, and Stiles has to stamp down on a wave of want that pours through him. Derek Hale sourwolf extraordinaire sitting on his bed. But really not the time to be indulging in that fantasy—not when the said wolf can smell arousal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many apologies for the extra-long delay! This chapter is months behind, and the only excuse I can make is that I've been going through some major transitions lately, and it's been incredibly challenging to find the time and energy to do anything more than eat, work, and sleep. Hopefully I'm in the process of resolving some things, so there will be more to come! Thanks for sticking with me!

After an entirely uninformative session with Deaton where the vet promised to keep Stiles’ nogitsune secret and some meditating didn’t’ happen, Derek and Stiles return to the Stilinski house.

“Hey dad,” Stiles says as Derek trails him into the house. “This werewolf is staying with us because his super psycho ex who may or may not be a creature of the night definitely wants to kill him and probably everyone else so he has to hide out, kay?”

John looks up from the simmering pot of spaghetti sauce he had been stirring and raises his eyebrows. “Does this have anything to do with you running out of history class and skipping the rest of the day?”

Stiles sighs. “You heard about that?”

“Yes, Stiles, I heard about that. The administration called me about your absences, and Scott came by to drop off your history textbook before he received a text from you about a 'super important pack meeting'. And what happened to your clothes?”

“Derek’s blood happened.”

“You okay, son?” The Sheriff asks, and Stiles nods before he realizes that the question is directed at Derek. 

“Yes,” the wolf says and clears his throat. “Entirely thanks to Stiles, sir, and I apologize about forcing him to skip school.”

“You didn’t force me to do anything,” Stiles interjects. “You don’t have to force me to save your furry ass, really, if that’s what you still think my reputation is completely misleading.”

Derek quirks a grin at the teen. “Any excuse to skip school, huh?” he says and both of the older men laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Stiles says. “But in this case, you not being dead takes priority, I think.”

His dad nods. “I’m glad you’re alright, Derek. And Stiles, if you… we thought… Scott mentioned…”

“Dad,” Stiles grits out. “Can we please talk about this later?”

“That’s the things Stiles, I just want you to talk about it, and it doesn’t need to be with me, and you know that sometimes professionals—“

“Dad! We’ll talk about this later,” Stiles says, grabbing first his textbook on the table, and then Derek’s hand and herding him towards the stairs. “Right now we have to figure out what creature of the night is after us and how to not get dead, good talk dad, going now, when’s dinner?”

His dad groans, but lets them disappear up the stairs without objection. 

Stiles pushes Derek into his room, and closes the door. He then deposits his backpack on the floor and dumps his textbook on the bed. It cascades open and settles in a furled heap. The werewolf glances around the room hesitantly. It’s not nearly the first time he’s been in here, but he acts like the territory is foreign.

“So, at least Deaton seems to think that she is a were of some sort,” Stiles says and sinks into his desk chair. Derek continues to stand awkwardly in the middle of the room. “And it makes sense if people take different shapes based on who they are, I mean look at what happened to Jackson, and she’s a fucking psychopath so of course she would go the nontraditional and scary route. Derek?” Stiles asks when he notices that the werewolf not only isn’t listening, but is frowning and rubbing his hands together distractedly.

“Derek? What is it?”

“What you said to your dad…”

“Which part? Oh my god, was I lying again? Shit! Oh god, what are we going to do?”

“No, no. Calm down, Stiles,” Derek says, lunging towards the teen and grabbing his flailing arms. “No, you didn’t lie, it’s fine, but that’s what…”

Stiles looks up to the hovering werewolf. He’s obviously conflicted about something, and it’s tearing him up. “Hey, it’s okay, you can tell me.”

“That’s the thing,” Derek says. “I didn’t.”

“What?”

“You told your dad that my super psycho ex was after me… I never told anyone… How did you know? You weren’t lying when you said that.”

Stiles’ shoulders droop. “Oh, yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt that out. I haven’t told anyone, and I won’t, I promise.”

“How did you know?”

Stiles shrugs. “I figured it out a while ago, and something Peter says sort of confirmed my suspicions.”

“Peter knows?” Derek asks, horrified.

“Definitely the what, but maybe not the who,” Stiles says.

“Well, of course he doesn’t know,” Derek says. “I’d be dead if he did.”

“What?”

“Peter killed everyone responsible for the fire, and I’m still alive, so that means that he doesn’t know.”

“But Derek, you aren’t responsible for the fire.”

“If not for me…”

“No!” Stiles shouts. “If not for you, she would have found another way, seriously, you are not the reason your family is dead. That’s all on Kate. All of it.”

Derek shakes his head.

“If she hadn’t used you she would have found another way, we both know that.”

“I made it easy.”

“How old were you?”

Derek doesn’t answer, just turns his head away.

“Fifteen.”

“Jesus. That sure as hell wasn’t your fault. If anything I blame your werewolf family for not figuring out that something was going on. You were still at the age where they should have been protecting you, not the other way around.”

“You know that’s not always how it works,” Derek says. “I mean, look at you and your dad. How long have you tried to protect him?” He continues when Stiles doesn’t answer. “I just didn’t want my family to worry. Not after…”

“Paige?”

“What the hell, Stiles? How do you know about that?”

Stiles shrugs. “Another awkward conversation with your dear not dead Uncle Peter.”

Derek takes a deep breath. “Yeah, after Paige.” He scoffs. “I guess my past isn’t nearly as well buried as I thought it was. If only it was the people I cared about who came back and not those I hate.”

“Dude, I know it sucks, but seriously, none of this was your fault.”

Derek shakes his head.

“Seriously man, and you know what? I think that Peter does know. He mentioned how you seem to fall for the crazy ones and I don’t think he was talking about Paige. And guess what? You’re still alive! So that obviously means that he doesn’t blame you for the fire.”

“Or he’s biding his time,” Derek spits out. 

“I don’t know what to tell you about Peter because he is one messed up creeper zombie, but I do know that none of what happened to you and your family is your fault and you can hear it if I lie, so Derek, if you don’t believe yourself, believe me when I tell you that you aren’t to blame.”

Derek catches his gaze and then looks away. Finally he nods once.

“Anytime you want me to say it again, Derek, I will. It’s not your fault.”

“Okay Stiles, I get it.”

“I don’t think you do, but let’s move on. And sit down, you’re giving my neck a crick looking up at you. Go sit on the bed,” he says when Derek peers around for a seat. 

He shuffles over to Stiles’ bed and situates himself on the very edge, and Stiles has to stamp down on a wave of want that pours through him. Derek Hale sourwolf extraordinaire sitting on his bed. But really not the time to be indulging in that fantasy—not when the said wolf can smell arousal. Stiles watches him pick up the open textbook and then freeze.

“Stiles.”

“What?” he flails. Dammit—did Derek guess what was running through his thoughts?

“You’re not supposed to write in school property,” he says.

“Well that’s cryptic. I didn’t.”

Derek narrows his eyes, his penetrating gaze focused on Stiles. “You’re not lying. You really think you didn’t. Stiles, did you write in this textbook?”

“No.”

Derek takes a deep, measured breath, the kind that is meant to calm and steady when the situation is anything but. 

“But this is your handwriting,” he says, waving Stiles over. “And I can smell you all over it. Your… saliva too. You were chewing on the pen at some point.”

Stiles launches himself from his chair and sits on the bed next to Derek so that only a few inches separate them. But he soon forgets their proximity because of what he sees, written in stark blue pen in what is unmistakably his handwriting.

It reads: “Wake up Stiles. This is real.”  
  



	10. Once More In Tries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A side effect?” Stiles queries. “Really Derek, it’s not something to worry about? All side effects of nogitunes should be worried about, because they usually involve death and dismemberment!”

“I don’t remember writing that,” Stiles croaks.

“You did it today. I can tell by how fresh the ink and saliva is.”

“Probably during history class, while I was asleep, in your dream,” Stiles says, suddenly panicking. “It’s already happening.”

“Calm down Stiles, this doesn’t mean anything.”

“Of course it does,” he says, fingers scrabbling over the writing. “It’s the same exact thing that happened last time… when it was actually the nogitsune. Wake up. Wake up. I kept on writing it, and I only noticed afterwards. It means—“

“It means that whatever powers the nogitsune left with you are manifesting, and this is one of them. It’s probably just a side effect of the dream sharing. Don’t worry about it now.”

“A side effect?” Stiles queries. “Really Derek, it’s not something to worry about? All side effects of nogitunes should be worried about, because they usually involve death and dismemberment!”

“But think about it.” Derek pulls the textbook from Stiles and traps the teen’s shaking hands in his own. “These words were intended to be helpful to you. The dream was real, and in order to get to me, to help me in time, you had to both realize that and wake up. Actually…”

“What?” Stiles snaps, trying to settle the shivering in his fingers.

“Actually, I don’t think this is a side effect. I think this is your own brain processing these new powers from the nogitsune. Last time it was your subconscious that was telling you to wake up—it was trying to help you out. I think this was your own brain, trying to help you process what you were experiencing and pull out the important bits.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” Derek sighs. “I’d like to say I am, but at the moment it’s only the best theory, and I really don’t believe that it’s something to worry about at the moment. If anything, I think it shows that your brain is on your side, and is trying to help you, maybe even protect you from the nogitsune.”

Stiles nods several times, the movements jerky and unrestrained.

“You good?” Derek asks.

“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles says, steadying his breath. This is not the time to freak out. Especially not with Derek sitting this close and with Derek’s hands…. Stiles pulls away from the older man and covers his face briefly. “The scariest part,” he whispers behind his fingers. “The scariest part is that I don’t remember writing that. I have no memory of it—I wasn’t in control at all…”

“Conscious control, you mean.”

“Yeah, well, isn’t that the only kind that matters?”

Derek shrugs. “Perhaps. But it seems like your subconscious has your best interests at heart… or is it in mind?”

Stiles lifts his eyebrows. “You’re making puns now? Who are you and what have you done with Derek? The Derek I know isn’t funny. Although, that wasn’t really funny. You don’t joke… you brood.”

The werewolf grins. “Perhaps you don’t actually know me as well as you think you do, Stiles.”

“Evidently,” he says, and tries to stop the tingle that races through his limbs at the thought of really knowing Derek, perhaps biblically… just, nope, not thinking about that now, especially not when Derek is sitting next to him on his bed, close enough to touch.

Stiles rockets to his feet and strides back to his desk. Space between them is good, especially since Derek is staying here. Oh god, Stiles is screwed.

“So…” Stiles says, stretching the word out. He glances at Derek out of the corner of his eye, but the older man isn’t paying attention. His head is cocked, like a dog picking up the shriek of a distant whistle.

Then Derek lunges to his feet, rips open the bedroom door, and tears out of the room. Stiles hears him jump down the stairs before racing to follow. He pounds down the stairs and stumbles into the kitchen at the sound of Derek’s howl.

Derek is wolfed-out, panting, his chest heaving with each breath, and his glowing blue eyes trained on the two other people in the room.

Kate, more human than animal, stands behind Stiles’ dad, her claw-tipped fingers perched at his throat, blood dripping from where the tips pierce through fragile human skin. The Sheriff’s hand is at his hip, where his gun would be were he not at home in his kitchen preparing dinner. He glances quickly between Stiles and Derek before settling on his son.

His voice is raw and low when he speaks. “Guess you weren’t kidding on the psycho ex thing, huh?”

And she laughs. “Oh Derek, that’s adorable.”

“Kate, let him go,” he growls through his fangs.

The Sheriff’s eyes widen. “Kate as in Kate Argent, the serial killer who—“

“Mass murderer,” Stiles corrects.

“Who should be dead?” his dad continues.

“No need to argue,” Kate says with a husky laugh. “You’re both right. The Hale fire would be considered mass murder, or my preferred term, strategic extermination, and my years of work before and after would probably fall under the serial killer category.” 

She watches Derek stiffen at the mention of the fire, only for him to pale at her next words. 

“I guess you didn’t know about the rest of my work, did you sweetie?” she coos. “I bet if you did, you would’ve tried to kill me earlier, if you had the guts. You might have even done a better job of it than your uncle did. As you can tell, it didn’t really take. Something Peter and I have in common, as it turns out.”

“Let him go,” Derek says again, throwing a less-than-subtle glance at Stiles.

“I just might,” she says.

“Alive,” Derek adds.

“Sure thing, sweetie.”

Stiles frowns.

“But only because you asked so nicely, Der.” She pauses. “You see, I was under the impression that you were dead, so this is all rather exciting, and quite a surprise. But it looks like you’re the hero again, just like you always wanted to be.”

Derek doesn’t move, only narrows his eyes.

“You see,” she says, and her fingers pulsate at the Sheriff’s neck, fresh blood dribbling into his collar. “It’s because of you that I no longer need to kill Stiles’ father.”

Derek shakes his head. “What do you want?”

“Nothing you can give me beyond the chance to kill you again. It was so much fun the first time.”

“Then why are you here.”

“Was that a question or a statement?” She laughs again. “I came to test a theory, but you already did it for me.” Her eyes find Stiles, and they search over his body, as though she is seeking an answer to some unasked question. Stiles shivers under her gaze and she grins, almost triumphantly. “And the only downside is that I’ll have to kill you again, which, now that I think about it isn’t a downside at all. Boys, you really know how to spoil a girl.”

Derek and Stiles exchange confused glances, and Kate grins again. She shuffles towards the back kitchen door, dragging the Sheriff with her. He grimaces as more blood spills down his neck.

“Nice seeing y’all,” she says, and then turns her attention once more to the teen. “Stiles, baby, you losing time yet?”

And then she’s gone, and Derek is leaping forward to support Stiles’ staggering dad. He grabs the near dishtowel and presses it against the Sheriff’s gushing neck before lowering him to the floor so his back rests against the cabinets. 

“Dad, are you okay?” Stiles asks, rushing to his side. “Do you need a hospital?”

“I don’t think so,” Derek says. He peels back the towel, gingerly assessing the damage. “He should be fine with a couple of stitches. We could call Scott or his mom if you don’t feel comfortable doing it, Stiles.”

The teen narrows his eyes at the werewolf. “I can do it. My sutures are just as nice as Scott’s thank you very much.”

“Just saying,” Derek shrugs, unable to hide his smirk. “We don’t want you passing out.”

“Jesus, one time,” Stiles hisses, and peers at his dad’s neck. “I can do it. You okay there, dad?”

The Sheriff groans. “I don’t know if I’m proud or disturbed by the fact that my son knows how to stitch someone up.”

“Be proud, dad,” Stiles says. “Especially since Lydia has some stuff that will make it so you’ll barely scar, I know how vain you are about your neck.”

“Don’t you forget it,” he says with a roll of his eyes. 

“Think we can take this party to the bathroom?” Stiles asks. “Or I can bring the kit out here…”

“Just help me up and I’ll be good,” he says and Derek gently hauls him to his feet. He sways for one moment before sinking to the floor again. “On second thought,” he says.

“Hey Derek,” Stiles says. “The kit’s in the bathroom cabinet. Fetch boy,” he says, smirking.

Derek glares at the teen but rises to his feet and exits the kitchen. 

“So did he date Kate Argent before or after she burnt his family alive?” 

Stiles cringes as places a hand over his dad’s mouth, then motions to his ears. The Sheriff’s eyes widen in understanding, and he grimaces. Then he raises his eyebrows in question. It’s Stiles’ turn to cringe in answer to his dad’s question. The Sheriff frowns, concern marring his face.

“But…” he says, and Stiles doesn’t need anymore to know the rest of what his dad is realizing: but that would mean that Derek was 15 years old. That would mean that Kate was 25. That would mean that she had planned it. That would mean that she had seduced a child to murder his family.

Stiles nods, and he’s sure that his dad’s expression of horror matches his own.

“How’s the pain?” Stiles asks when he hears Derek approaching. “I can give you morphine or some local anesthetic…”

“How the hell did you get morphine? Wait, don’t tell me,” he says as Derek kneels at his side. “A local is fine. It’s more the thought of my kid poking me with a needle than the actual injury.”

Stiles nods and accepts the gloves and antiseptic wipes from Derek. The Sheriff remains silent as Stiles gives him the shot and preps his supplies, only speaking when Stiles raises the curved needle to his dad’s neck.

“Just what the hell did she mean?” he asks, and his son pauses. “Stiles, what was she talking about when she asked if you were losing time?”

Stiles cringes and finds Derek’s worried eyes.

There is only one answer to that question: Kate knows. 

She knows about Stiles post-nogitsune.

Shit. 

And she has plans for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! I haven't abandoned this story, do not fear! I wrote this chapter a little while ago, and hope to have more up soon! Thanks for reading and reviewing!


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